Fascinating dinner and general gassing with various bods from McLaren before, during and after the launch of the 650S at the Geneva motor show

Which car do they think is the key rival to the new small McLaren - codenamed P13 - that will go on sale later this year at the £100-120k mark?

The Porsche 911 GT3, with a small but surprisingly slight nod in the direction of the Porsche 911 Turbo at the same time. Which gives you a pretty decent indication about what sort of car McLaren is building.

Why have they still not published a definitive Nurburgring lap time on the P1 when internet speculation continues to suggest that the car might not be able to beat that magic seven minute barrier? "Because if you're a poker player - and I'm not - you never want to show your hand too soon" said Woking's head of sales and marketing, Greg Levine. 

Which means what, exactly? To me it means McLaren doesn't want to get involved in a bragging competition with Porsche and Ferrari, not yet at any rate, but that it might well publish a lap time eventually. 

Having said that, McLaren's tech chief Mark Vinnels told me at dinner the previous evening that he didn't want to see his drivers chasing an ultimate lap time around the Nurburgring because "Sooner or later it will end in tears if we, and they (ie Ferrari) go down that route." Which is fair enough given how dangerous the Nurburgring is, how little run off there is most of the way around the lap, and how fast cars like P1, 918 Spyder and LaFerrari can go.

Watch this space I guess, and in the meantime rejoice in the fact that the 650S looks both sexier and more arresting than the dear old 12C in the flesh, by at least one and a half country miles